9 - Dozier (draft)

Dozier

Consciousness came on like the tide, slowly flowing in from the darkness and then retreating. He was awake, then he wasn’t. There was a hush of mumbled voices, then silence.

If he spoke, it was in whispers not even heard by him.

He knew he was becoming… present. With each wave, it took less effort to hold onto that feeling of being in the now. But he felt the pull back into nothingness. It was comforting.

“He’s coming to.” A voice. Male. Unknown.

Dozier, fighting off a sleep so deep he wondered if he had died, wondered who they were referring. Then he realized they were speaking about him. He was coming to.

He had been gone. He had been out. There was a sense of misplaced time, as if he could tell that he had aged without warning. Time was a fluid definition in an age of space travel and lunar cycles and planetary days, but even so, Dozier knew he was older now than when he was last awake.

How long? He wondered. By what measure? A day? What kind of day, Eres or Imperial?

His limbs felt leaden from unuse.

Or was it more than that? A week? A year?

“Senator Dozier, can you hear me?”

I can hear you, he tried to say but it was a croak. His throat was so dry. He lifted his right arm – by Eres mercy it was heavy – and made what he thought was a thumbs up gesture. Everything felt foreign, as if during his slumber they replaced his body and haphazardly dumped his mind into it. Here, have at it.

“Can you try opening your eyes?”

Good question. Could he? He thought about it and gave it a go. He could.

The light above him was bright and sterile. He blinked cautiously – what were the odds the act would send him back into the depths? – and looked around. The room was bright and sterile. A hospital room. Complete with a doctor and a nurse, both looking over him with concern.

“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked, handing him a cup of water.

Dozier sipped the water and marveled at how rapidly it coated his parched throat. He felt it spread through his body like a magic elixir.

Water, he thought. Go figure. The one thing Eres had in abundance, even in the leanest years.

“I am in a hospital,” he croaked. “Why?” He struggled to sit up but quickly gave up.

The nurse leaned over and raised the back of the bed, bringing Dozier into an upright position while the doctor spoke. “You’ve fine now, but I have to admit it had been touch and go at the beginning. You were poisoned.”

“Poisoned.” The word seemed to hang in the air, awaiting definition.

The doctor nodded. “You collapsed right before the opening ceremonies.”

Said: You collapsed.

Unsaid: You missed the Grand Realignment.

“Everything was cancelled,” the doctor continued, as if she had read his mind. “although Minister Freeman carried on in your stead in a more private, secure setting. I watched the vid-clips. You should be proud. There wasn’t a dignitary who didn’t praise you to the heavens. All things considered, it went off without a hitch.”

Apart from me being poisoned, Dozier thought. Apart from that.

“Do they know who?”

“There’s an ongoing investigation that your security detail can brief you on. They’re on their way. My responsibility was bringing you back from the dead.”

“How… dead?”

The doctor considered the question. After a moment, she said, “Had this happened a month ago, we might not be talking. It was an unknown poison that required off world medicine. We were not equipped to deal with it on our own. In a sense, you saved your own life.”

Congratulations? Dozier thought. He tried to cut through the fog in his mind to recall what led to him waking up sickly and confused in an Eres hospital. If he even was still on Eres.

“There were others,” he said. “I had been notified by security that there was an issue.”

The nurse checked Dozier’s vitals while the doctor replied, “Yes. Forty-nine other cases. We managed to save a few but quite a number didn’t make it.”

“Fifty victims,” he said. One for each year of independence from the Empire, he thought. “How?”

“Again, I’ll let your security detail answer that. I’m not privy to that information.”

“I had a meat pie,” Dozier said, the words catching in his throat. “And some of that wretched Bellzator mold.”

The doctor chuckled. “Neither of those were the culprit. But I have to say, you’re brave if you had S’inghah. The smell alone…” She mock shuddered.

A knock at the door and Dozier’s team crowded into the room. The doctor nodded curtly and left with her assistant.

####

There were scores of excuses but little to work with. Whomever poisoned Dozier was a professional. While his collapse had stopped the event, there were no witnesses to the crime itself. The citadel was crowded enough that everyone and no one were suspicious. And not a single system escaped unscathed. At least one representative per was either dead within hours or in a condition similar to Dozier’s.

The only evidence had been in Dozier’s system, and medicine had flushed it away.

“What do we know?” Dozier asked Jordan. Again. With each iteration, he found it more believable, but he was still confused as to how it involved him directly. He was trying to bring the galaxy back together. Why him? Who was so opposed to progress? Whitman would have had suggestions, but he had been whisked off to a secure, undisclosed location.

“The base materials are off-world but they’re common enough to be found on most terraformed planet.”

“So even Eres II?”

“It’s possible. Provided Eres II has all the components.”

“Which they don’t?” The team had informed Dozier that not only had he been out for five Eres days but had been transported to the military hospital orbiting the planet.

“It’s a large planet, sir.”

“Surely there are leads.” He was appalled that so little had been discovered.

“It’s an even larger galaxy,” Jordan replied apologetically. “Minister Freeman has allocated all available resources and the Eres government is coordinating with the other systems.”

“All of them?”

“Most of them.”

“Who’s not on board? I understand that not everyone was pleased with what they got in the Grand Realignment but to the point where they won’t support a criminal investigation?”

Jordan shifted his position. “It’s political.”

“Political?” Dozier had a suspicion as to what was coming next.

“There is talk from some that this was orchestrated.” He paused. “By Eres. By you.”

Dozier sighed. “Theater for the event? A last-minute act to push Eres to the forefront of the Alignment?” It was a rhetorical question. While still wondering how and why he got poisoned, he understood the implications. Almost dying for the cause made good theater. But who would think that was a rational political maneuver? Especially when Eres had gained so much already?

“Correct, sir.”

“Which systems? I want a list.”

Jordan passed over his handheld. “Already prepared sir. There’s also a breakdown of support by system - who’s legitimately helping, who’s stonewalling. I can also provide current polling numbers, although you shouldn’t be concerned. The support for the Grand Realignment has never been higher. People are already seeing the benefits.”

“I’m not surprised but I am pleased. I’d like to see an analysis of how that’s playing out. What are the current gains and losses? What are the projections for the remainder of the fiscal year.”

“We’re working on that as well, sir. I can tell you that the grain shortages in Eres has almost been cut in half. If they can sustain the tonnage, we may be set for the rest of the year. We have Rhomalax to thank for that.”

Dozier shifted in his bed. He really needed to get up but was still concerned about how well he’d fare. The poison – cobbled together from the biowaste found in the massive terraformers and commonly found flora – struck his nervous system like a cruise missile. And whoever was responsible bound their concoction with a liberal amount of opioids. Dozier had been far too comfortable when his body shut down. No pain, just oblivion. He was still struggling to shake off the effects. The last thing he wanted to do was collapse in front of his staff. Best to be stoic in a hospital bed.

“Anything else I need to be concerned about?”

“A few systems are again voicing the need for a centralized military force to protect the trade routes. They are trying to use your assassination attempt as leverage.”

“They being?”

“Caladrone, Bellzator, Trillox primarily. They feel the current agreement of financial support for local jurisdictions is inadequate given what happened.”

“They feel we’re all going to be poisoned? There are a lot of people involved. It’s going to take some time,” Dozier quipped.

“Their argument is if you can be reached so easily, how safe are the trade routes? The piracy guild is still a force. The system warlords are still out there.”

“We had accounted for those. The warlords remain a concern, true, but as the Realignment pushes forward and we offer amnesty and employment to those pirates willing to make good, they will be less and less a worry. We’ve already seen this in motion.”

“True, sir, but there is still concern. All it takes is one critical strike.”

“The systems still have the capacity to escort the trade ships, correct? We haven’t lost our resources in the past five days, have we?”

“We have not, and we have not had any incidents.”

“Then this ask for a galactic navy will ultimately be unnecessary. What are the other systems saying?”

“They’re noncommittal. My guess is they are adopting a ‘Wait and see’ policy.”

Wait and see. Dozier should’ve have guessed. From the beginning of his crusade to create a new era of galactic prosperity, it was the default reaction. Every government was eager to reap the rewards but unwilling to be the first foot forward. Even the most basic of arguments had been met with hesitation.

Your system is starving to death. Join the Grand Realignment and we will help bring you back from ruin.

We’re going to wait and see what happens to the other systems first.

“Calladrone and the others – have they offered any suggestions as to who ‘owns’ this navy?”

“They have not.”

“So they want a navy but they don’t want the responsibility of maintaining it?”

“It would appear so, sir.”

“Or are they hoping someone would nominate them and spare them the embarrassment of asking for themselves?”

Jordan nodded. “That’s also a possibility. Calladrone and Bellzator in particular had the most stringent of demands.”

“But they were more concerned with their own sovereign independence. A centralized navy is counter intuitive. What do you think Trillox’ angle is?”

“Based on our intel, they have a genuine concern for safety. I would say their long-term goal is a restructuring of the galactic order.”

“A new empire.”

“Like Eres, they did benefit greatly from the Dzengharian Empire.”

“Speaking of which, what do they have to say?”

“They are, as always, just happy to be included. A seat at the table is more than enough for them.”

“We’re sure of this?”

“Completely. We have eyes and ears on them. Dzenghar understands their place in the galaxy.”

Dozier shifted his position yet again. He really needed to get out of this bed and get back to work. The thought of the Grand Realignment moving forward without him was tantamount to another poisoning. “We need to prove the futility of this ask. Summon the General Council.”